In celebration of International Women’s Day on March 8, Leslie Flowers, speaker, best-selling author, and women’s business guide, illuminates the disparity in earnings and the gender wage gap that keeps women behind in pay worldwide. Flowers shares the number one reason women do not earn the same as men, and how women can overcome this obstacle in short order.
“The top reason women are paid less than men has little to do with ability. Women have that,” Flowers shared. “Women earn less because they do not believe they are worthy or deserving of that pay.” She went on to point out, “Women have only been in business full time for some three decades, while today’s context of business success was developed by men over some two hundred generations and requires a set of skills of which women are either unpracticed or unaware. It’s no different than men taking on the homemaker role; there’s a good sized learning curve.”
First, women enter the business world without the skills that allow them to match the current context for business success. When the lack of these skills clash with expected business behavioral norms, business leaders do not take women seriously. The more women exhibit this lack of business skills, such as telling the whole story rather than getting right to the point, the less they are taken seriously.
Next many women are not confident yet in their abilities, so they do not automatically step up to the plate as their male counterparts do routinely. Katty Kay, author of The Confidence Code: The Science and Art of Self-Assurance, echoes the importance of women developing belief in their self-worth, leading to stronger confidence. She states, “When a man walks into a room, they’re assumed to be competent until they prove otherwise.” When a woman walks into a room, her physical demeanor, unless a near match to her male counterpart, reflects her as not as competent and there is little chance she can prove otherwise.
Since 2008, Flowers has facilitated more than fifty group mastermind studies based on the age old principles of success in Think and Grow Rich (Napoleon Hill) and universal law developed and practiced by men over some two hundred generations. These are the foundation for today’s context for business success.
In 2013, when the IWPR (Institute of Women’s Policy Research) reported that in North Carolina, the gap was not expected to close until mid-century, Flowers turned her focus toward women and how to close the gap one woman at a time. Her personal goal is to crush the gap by 2025, some twenty-five years earlier than predicted.
In light of this new mission, Flowers created her cornerstone Mavenz Mind program, a mastermind for women with a focus on teaching women how to match the behaviors of business success, without losing any femininity and then to develop the ‘muscle of belief’ in their self-worth, guiding them to consistent success over time. This success creates momentum which, in turn, creates more success.
The results from this program are not just theory, as Flowers has been delivering this material to women entrepreneurs and corporate staff for over three years, with the results being explosive momentum and growth of their businesses.
For more information on Flower’s high-performance, high-yield online business mastermind for women, go to Leslie-Flowers.com.